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Article: Rats targeted on Rat Island
- Article from:
- Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
- Article date:
- November 28, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2007 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- More than 200 years ago, rats jumped ship
for Rat Island.
The muscular Norway rat climbed ashore on the rugged, uninhabited
island in far southwestern Alaska in 1780 after a rodent-infested
Japanese ship ran aground. It was the first time rats had made it to
Alaska.
Since then, Rat Island, as the piece of rock was dubbed by a sea
captain in the 1800s, has gone eerily silent. The sounds of birds
are missing.
That is because the rats feed on eggs, chicks and adult seabirds,
which come to the mostly treeless island to nest on the ground or in
crevices in the volcanic rock.
"As far as bird life, it is a dead zone," said Steve Ebbert, a
biologist at the Alaska Maritime ...